


Flame

by StAnni



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Falling Apart, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 03:46:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16846501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StAnni/pseuds/StAnni
Summary: She is twenty six and her anger digs into the earth, ripping it up, unrooting the world.  There are oceans that she has never seen that she would smother out with dust and fire.





	Flame

He is twenty four and on the roof he can smell Jasmine, just a trace of it, and the slight lull of vanilla – he closes his eyes to it and when he opens them he hears her amusement, a trickle of soft laughter in the darkness, behind him. She shakes her head at him, faintly and moves closer, her figure black against the blue of midnight. “You haven’t come here in forever.” Her face is pale moonlight and she gently puts her arms on his shoulders, her fingers tracing through the hair just above his neck. “Are you still mad at me?” The question is light, but serious.

He is still mad – he is still very mad, but he couldn’t bear staying away for another night. “I’m working on it.” He says quietly – because he can’t lie to her.  
She sighs and leans in to him, placing a kiss on his chin. “Better?” she teases with a smile and he looks down at her, silently putting his arms around her waist.  
She is the only woman he has ever loved and he has loved her for as long as he has known her and he has known her for longer than he has not. “Everyone is looking for you, Selina” he says as she leans against the support of his arm around the small of her back. “Not everyone, I’m sure.” She demurs, running her fingers down his chest, resting under the coat there. “But I’m glad you are.” She says softly.

Moments like these, moments of tranquillity, however precarious, are rare for them. He knows this as he knows that these moments will only ever become scarcer. He leans in to kiss her and she meets him with a happy sigh, deepening the kiss as they each sink into another. She breathes against his ear, the words without guile “Please don’t be angry at me Bruce, you’re the one person I can’t stand to be angry at me.” It is the same for him, so he doesn’t say anything, but pulls her into another kiss – more insistent, desperate. 

The first time was in her then-apartment, six years ago, and he was barely nineteen, and ravenous for her. They have parted ways since, both in anger and in necessity, but every time he has her, every time she allows him to have her, he is back in that apartment – his need for her never receding. 

Afterwards, covered in his coat, she puts her cheek to his shoulder and breathes – a bloom of white air in the morning hours. “When this all ends, we should go down South – see the ocean.” He smiles and she can feel it, glancing up at him she smiles too “Have a picnic on the beach.” He offers.  
It is a peaceful thought – a fantasy of escape, they both know even if the riots end, the wars never will – not in Gotham.  
“Maybe then you can forgive me.” She whispers and he doesn’t look at her – “Maybe then you can forgive me too.” he breathes.

*

She is twenty six and her anger digs into the earth, ripping it up, unrooting the world. There are oceans that she has never seen that she would smother out with dust and fire.  
Bruce, her Bruce and not her Bruce, grabs her roughly by her arm and slams her into the wall moments after the explosion rips through midtown. His voice is a ringing buzz in her ears and he is yelling, furious and afraid – for her? of her? She knows what he is saying because he has been saying the same thing to her, only escalating in volume and unease over three years “Selina, stop! Stop!” Stop.  
The only thing she can’t do is the only the thing he wants her to do.

The explosion decimates the building where she knows, she is certain, the GCPD is holding Jeremiah Valeska. Her mind is a narrow tunnel of flames and there is no room for pause. Bruce, her Bruce and not her Bruce, has betrayed her by keeping the most important key to her release a secret from her. “You did this!” She screams at him, knowing her voice, to him, couldn’t be more than a feint call – far, far removed. “You helped them hide him!” 

Some things can be forgiven, and when you can’t forgive, you can try to forget – it is a lie you can tell yourself and Selina is done with telling lies to herself. “I hate you!” is the last thing she gets out before the second explosion, the distraction, hits and Bruce is shaken away from her. She has run from cataclysms left in her wake before – and she does that now, not looking back.

*

He is twenty five and Gotham is brought to its knees by the fury of the woman that he loves. His concern for her has grown to outright distress. 

At nights, when she allows him to find her, or when her guard is down – exhausted and bleeding, he grips her by her shoulders and heaving her against concrete attempting to shove and frighten sense into her. Will they ever, ever get better? These nights yoke into one – his determination to find her, force her to reason, hook and claw for her return becoming his only charge.

The night of the explosion at the Mercury Building in midtown, only seconds after it is safely evacuated, he can feel his hold bruise her arm, he can hear the crack of her head against the concrete as he forces her out of view of the scrambling police officers. “Selina, Stop!” He yells, because it is the only thing that he can say to her now, the only thing that he can ask. Before a second explosion, a block down, shudders the street beneath their feet her eyes fix on his and she cries “I hate you!” with such sincere and driven emotion that it numbs his hold on her, shutters his heart to stop for one cold moment. And then she is gone.

*

She is twenty eight and the world is a different world and she is a different person in a different world. Her hands, absently holding the flute of champagne, are not her hands and the face she sees in the ball room mirror is not the face she knew before. 

There are glimmers that she permits herself – memories of Bruce running his fingers through her curls before he grips, possessively, and open his mouth to hers as he pushes into her. There are also memories of quiet conversations when they were younger. Mostly, and simply due to the intensity of the emotions behind them, there are memories of the war, later in the war, when even their devotion to each other proved too fragile to withstand the injuries inflicted on each other.

He is twenty seven and she sees him where she always sees him, entering near the back, staying to the shadows, only mingling when he needs to and only with the most influential individuals present. He has lost the last of the ease his youth afforded him – he is sleek and ambitious during the day, and he is compelled and insular at night. The world is different for him as well, she knows, and this Bruce, who is not her Bruce, would not recognize her, or who she was, now either.


End file.
